Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A Conversational Guide to the Ladies

I keep hearing a lot about pick up artists* (hereinafter "PUA") and negging. I wasn't exactly certain what negging was, so I looked it up.

It's appalling.

Remember that a neg-hit is a remark, sometimes humorous, used to point out a woman’s flaws.

a) A neg-hit IS used to penetrate a woman’s bitch shield.

b) A neg-hit IS used to bring a woman down off her self-imposed pedestal.

c) A neg-hit is SINCERE. Women can spot phony a mile away.

d) And most importantly, a neg-hit IS used to bring a woman’s self perception more into line with reality.


a) the "bitch shield".

Oh, I know what he's talking about. You know what being a woman is like? Imagine that when you talk to a man, you say "I need a cordless drill" and what he hears is "I'm a stupid woman. Even though I asked you for the drill, you should address all remarks concerning said drill to the man standing next to me, whom I may or may not know."

Imagine that when you talk to a man, you say "Do you know if the bus left yet?" and he hears "I would love to give you a blowjob."

Imagine that when you say nothing at all, a man hears "Please, comment on my body/ask me out/request sexual activity".

Every fucking day, people. Every fucking day.

Now imagine that is what happens to you every day, imagine that you are completely aware that at any moment, a man may abduct you, rape you, drug you, rape you, rape you, rape you and it will be you fault because (pick any two) you made eye contact, you smiled at him, you wore clothes, you have a vagina.

Imagine not having a "bitch shield" if that was your everyday life. I need that shield asshole.

b) self imposed pedestal.

Oh, noez! Ai has self esteemz! I should not. I should be pathetically happy for any scrap of attention any man gives me because he's man, damnit! How dare I not find him to be attractive/desireable/funny/awesome! How dare I not respond to his attentions! I need to be knocked off my pedestal right this instant!

c) sincere?

srsly? Let's be honest here, fellas: if you are insulting me, I don't give a shit whether you really think my breasts could be better or not, you're still insulting me. fuck off. you don't like my breasts? go find someone whose breasts you do like.

i really just can't get over that it's the sincerity of the insults that is supposed to be the issue. that's like being stabbed and then told, "don't worry, I used a Ginsu, that's the good stuff!"

d) a neg-hit IS used to bring a woman’s self perception more into line with reality

Because it's men who determine reality, you see. I am just a woman, I cannot accurately determine my own worth. I need men to tell me what the worth is, and enforce that estimation of worth if my estimation is different.

You think that's just the PUA culture? Ha! Welcome to reality, dude. How do I know you're a dude if you think that? Simple. If you're a woman, you know that your worth is always determined by men. You know that your worth is always in relation to what men can get from you. You know that default human beings are men, the default human experience is male and "he" is a perfectly adequate word to discuss human beings in general.

Because human beings are men.

V.S. Naipul
is causing yet another stir by claiming that female writers just aren't as good as male writers. They aren't. Because they write from the female perspective, you see. And even though women are 50% of the population of the Earth, the female perspective is not a universal perspective.

When men write books from the male perspective about men doing man things, it's literature. Even though the male perspective only applies to 50% of the population, their stories are universal and represent the "human" experience, perhaps even the "triumph of the human soul." These books are marketed to everyone everywhere.

When women write books from the female perspective about women doing woman things, it's chick lit. These books will have silly, frilly covers including at least one pink item, cutesy clever titles (writers do NOT pick their books' titles) and will be marketed exclusively to women and the word "human" will not be used at all. You're lucky if they're using "women" instead of "girls".

So as disgusting as I find PUAs, they're not the disease. They're just the hard to ignore symptom of how our culture regards women.

Including me.



*Christopher Walken's finest moment: One can be an artist in anything. Creasy's art is death. But it could use a little more cowbell.

17 comments:

  1. Now imagine that is what happens to you every day, imagine that you are completely aware that at any moment, a man may abduct you, rape you, drug you, rape you, rape you, rape you and it will be you fault because (pick any two) you made eye contact, you smiled at him, you wore clothes, you have a vagina.

    You left out all the assholes that are trying to give you neg-hits rather than talking to you like you're a human being.

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  2. These pick up artist guys that you blog about make Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd's "Wild and Crazy Guy" characters look almost like feminists by comparison.

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  3. Also I think all of these types of posts would be more entertaining if you envision them all as being written by Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation.

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  4. I just can't believe negging works. If someone did that to me, I would be so overcome by the rudeness of it, I would gape at them and then leave with explanation.

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  5. Oh god. when you wrote the word "negging" I immediately knew where this was headed, despite never having heard it before. The word just sounds wrong somewhow. It's cheerful but nasty at the same time, like a bully who grins and appeals to the gathered crowd in between kicking you on the ground.

    ...

    Um. I followed the link.

    Oh.

    Oh god, what did I just read? WHAT THE HELL?

    No. I can't take this. I'm going to need a flamethrower, a goat gene-spliced with a drop-bear, twenty-four fully charged power-drills and at least two kilograms of plutonium laced with antimatter.

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  6. Yeah. Negging works if you're already vulnerable and insecure--it used to work on me just great. And that's one of my many, many problems with PUAs ("PUA"...the sound I made a few days ago when I choked on a cracker): they are deliberately targeting women who have extremely low self-esteem. And that can cause real harm, because, yknow, wimminz are people.

    If I have to reinforce my bitch shield one more time I won't even be able to lift it. Sigh.

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  7. Speaking of "Chick Lit," I would really love to hear your thoughts on this article. Please? Pretty please? In a blog post? :D

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  8. Quasar - i have all of that but the flamethrower. let me ride shotgun and it's yours!

    [not really, sadly... but i can dream]


    PPB - i can see that. thing is, my low self-esteem is different [it's always "he only wants me for sex" and/or "he's going to be mad that i'm smarter than him, and i'm so sick of men being pissed because i happen to have both large breasts and a large IQ. SO SICK OF IT!"] that the one time a PUA *did* try to do this, i didn't even realize. he made a rude remark about how "poorly" i maintained my nails, and i replied "no, that's because i have Rhumatoid Arthritis" and he said "those are your REAL nails" and i said "yes. and?"
    flustered the hell out of him. every neg he tried ended up not even bothering me, i just explained why it was true without getting upset - i wasn't interested in him, and so didn't care about his opinion at all, because he was just another guy trying to fuck me and that's all.

    and he could not, could NOT, cope with the fact.

    [also - i had a boyfriend. this guy didn't BELIEVE that i had a boyfriend, right up until said boyfriend came to hold my coat while i kicked the guy's ass. then the guy ran away. *shrug*]

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  9. :( PPB that came off like i was saying that it was YOUR fault. i do NOT think that, and didn't mean to give that impression - it's that i have a very low self-esteem, but in a sort of different way. i was explaining how i was negged and didn't even KNOW it - not trying to say i was better than you, or that it was your fault, or ANYTHING like that.

    i'm sorry.

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  10. @ Denelian--no worries, I didn't take it that way at all. :) I get what you're saying. Negging doesn't work at all on me now--I mean, it can bruise my self-esteem a bit, but intellectually I recognize it for what it is (entitled misogynist asshattery), and am able to distance myself from the PUA.

    I'm disgusted with pick-up artist BS mostly because it's so incredibly predatory and dehumanizing. Oh, your "technique" involves making your "target" feel like shit so you can convince her to sleep with you? Congratulations, you think like a rapist! The language is creepy too--"neg-hit"? "Target"? Lovely.

    Srsly what is this I don't even.

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  11. You are fabulous! You state all of those things very well. Things I have thought but have not said quite as elegantly as you just have. keep up the great writing!!

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  12. "Congratulations, you think like a rapist!"

    Ah! There it is. Thank you PPB, That's what I was thinking but couldn't put into words.

    These douchebags certainly don't come across as wanting a relationship. They barely come across as wanting the sex. What they want is someone they can use and discard, someone they can manipulate, a trophy to add to their collection. They're rapists who manipulate vulnerable people into giving consent, rather than taking it by force.

    So yeah. I've got the power drills and the drop-goat now, and I can borrow Denelians plutonium (of course you can ride shotgun, D!). Still looking for a flamethrower, but if all else fails I can cobble together a deoderant can and a lighter. And as a backup plan, I've still got 40,000 gallons of yoghurt and a timecube left over from last time.

    Now all we need to do is kidnap a teenage hacker and force him to find out the location of this guys IP address for us.

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  13. PPB; this is me being relieved.
    i'm one of those people who has to be able to relate things back to me - i fear this makes me look like the biggest ego on the block, but if i can't relate it back to me i can't even *relate* to it, usually - and sometimes i step on toes. i don't LIKE stepping on toes, especially those belonging to people i like :)

    i'm sorry jerks can still make you feel bad [and i get it. they can make me feel bad, too - just now we're too smart to let them use it to manipulate us!]

    and you are 1 BILLION percent right on their thought process - they are rapists in all but name. dispicable. [not that i can spell]


    Quasar - he's not a teenager, but my boyfriend is a fair hacker - AND he can shoot :)

    so all we really need is that flamethrow, although you pointed out hairspray - Buffy proved that hairspray can be just as effective!

    ready when you are - although give us a week, i'm pretty positive our latest schematics to convert my wheelchair to a mortar are correct, this time, and then we ALSO have indirect fire. and that's ALWAYS useful :D

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  14. Wheelchair mortars? HELL YES! You have your week.

    While you're working on that I'll see if I can find a way to make the mortar shells release a controlled local-vicinity cutler-genetic reaction that would convert all matter in the immediate area into sporks. (I have to calibrate it very carefully lest I release an uncontrolled reaction that converts everything in existance into sporks. Again).

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  15. Quasar;

    yes, DO be careful on that calibration - being a spork kinda sucks :)

    but i can ride shotgun cuz my cane has been converted, and my crutches are both sniper rifles - we're looking at the walker. mount for a minigun? it's too light for a 50cal...


    *sings* we're off to take the world,
    take it over, take it over
    and once we have the world,
    we hand it over, hand it over
    to the bestest greatest cutest Empress EVER!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Take over the who what now? I thought we were just hunting down an asshole?

    I suppose we could expand our scope to hunt down all the assholeses? But if we're going to take over the world we need more than just weapons. We need... A Plan.

    And if The Plan doesn't involve ducks in some capacity, a holographic projection of a 60 foot tall Santa Claus, and summoning at least one elder god, I'm going to be very disappointed.

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  17. oh, no, certainly we're not taking over the world THIS MONTH - it's just now my standard fight song :)

    after all, i *AM* PF's Highest Priestess and General of All Her Armies, Admiral of All Her Navies, and General of All Her Airforce.
    i left Marines out, when i was setting everything up, and i fell silly about that. how did i forget Marines?

    but anyway, it's just the World Government's Fight Song - used for any fight :D



    but... but we COULD make A Plan. i've got geese instead of ducks, but that's ok, geese are more agressive. sadly, i'm no good with holotech - but i *do* have several Elder Gods on speed dial... i mean, we COULD do it, i've got the Invisible Sparkly Pink Unicorn Calvary ready, the Glittery Purple Pegasi/ Shiny Silvery Alicorn Air Force is at Defcom 3, and my Narwal Whale Navy has been chomping at the bit...

    ReplyDelete

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